September 2012 by Kate F. Hurley, DVM, MPVM

Feline upper respiratory infections are killers. The Association of Shelter Veterinarians list it as the number one health issue in shelters, where stress and close quarters provide the perfect conditions for both exposure and illness. Can shelters really beat URI? Can outbreaks be prevented, or once started, stopped?

Widely acknowledged as the country's leading expert on feline URI in shelters, Dr. Kate Hurley, Director of the Koret Shelter Medicine Program at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, says that yes, outbreaks can be prevented and stopped. Please join Maddie's Fund® and Dr. Hurley for a free webcast - Knocking the Snot Out of Feline URI: Saving Shelter Cats' Lives with Treatment and Prevention. The recorded version is available below.

Knocking the Snot Out of Feline URI is the first in a two-part series. In part two, Fixing the Feline Housing Crisis: How Shelter Housing Can Make Cats Sick - And What You Can Do About It, Dr. Sandra Newbury will discuss the role of housing and stress in controlling URI in the shelter feline population.

Attendees will learn:

How common feline URI is in U.S. shelters

An overview of the common pathogens that cause feline URI

The natural history of feline calicivirus and herpesvirus

URI differences in cats in homes and cats in shelters

Virulent systemic feline calicivirus vs. other strains

Strategies for treatment of feline URI

Diagnosing URI in shelters

How to prevent URI in shelter cats

Knocking the Snot Out of Feline URI: Saving Shelter Cats' Lives with Treatment and Prevention is part of an ongoing series of educational programs from Maddie's Institute, a program of Maddie's Fund®, the nation's leading funder of shelter medicine education. Maddie's Institute brings cutting edge shelter medicine information from universities and animal welfare leaders to shelter veterinarians, managers and staff as well as private practice veterinarians, rescue groups and community members to increase the lifesaving of homeless dogs and cats community-wide.

This course has been pre-approved for Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits.

Kate Hurley, DVM, MPVM

Dr. Hurley has been working in shelters since 1989. She has worked in almost every capacity of sheltering including: adoption counselor, kennel attendant and California state humane officer. After graduation from the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine in 1999, Dr. Hurley worked as a shelter veterinarian in California and Wisconsin. In 2001 she returned to Davis for further training as the world's first resident in Shelter Medicine. During her residency, Dr. Hurley completed her Masters of Preventative Veterinary Medicine (MPVM) with an emphasis in Epidemiology.

Since completing the shelter medicine residency and undertaking the direction of the Koret Shelter Medicine Program, Dr. Hurley has become a recognized leader in the field of shelter medicine. She has worked extensively with shelters of every size and management type, and has consulted with shelters from all regions of the United States on subjects ranging from control of a specific outbreak to shelter health care programs and facility design. She assisted in developing guidelines for shelter animal vaccination in conjunction with the American Association of Feline Practitioners and the American Animal Hospital Association, co-edited the textbook Infectious Disease Management in Animal Shelters (Wiley-Blackwell 2009) and served as a co-author for the Association of Shelter Veterinarians Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters.

Dr. Hurley regularly speaks nationally and internationally on topics related to shelter animal health. She was awarded Shelter Veterinarian of the Year in 2006 by the American Humane Association. Hurley loves shelter medicine because it has the potential to improve the lives of so many animals and make life better for the dedicated shelter workers who care for all those homeless pets. Her interests include population health, infectious disease epidemiology and unusually short dogs.